The enterprising entrepreneur reimburses himself for the shirts and splits the remaining proceeds, which leaves him with enough for that poster as well as a “brand-new business book,” while his friends express other fiscal strategies: saving their share, spending it all on new art supplies, or donating part and buying a (math) book with the rest.

Then he recruits three friends to decorate them with his design and help sell them for an unspecified amount (from a conveniently free and empty street-fair booth) until they’re gone. Having only half of the $10 he needs for a Minka J poster, Daymond forks over $1 to buy a plain T-shirt, paints a picture of the pop star on it, sells it for $5, and uses all of his cash to buy nine more shirts. John, founder of the FUBU fashion line and a Shark Tank venture capitalist, offers a self-referential blueprint for financial success. How to raise money for a coveted poster: put your friends to work! This seemingly simple read-aloud to introduce young readers to the 50th anniversary of the Voting Rights Act achieves complexity in its images.

The Confederate flag flying over the polling station and the facial expressions of the white people there underscore the racialized context for sanitized statements like “some people were allowed to vote and some people were not.” The final page of historical information about voting rights in the South is a nice bonus. Coretta Scott King Award–winning illustrator Ransome captures the nuance that is left out of the text in his vibrant watercolor paintings. Instead, the gentle “patience, son, patience” refrain implies justice will come as a matter of course if readers wait their turn. The story is subtle, skipping over the struggle required to achieve progress. His grandfather is voting for the first time! But when a deputy at the voting booth stops them, the joyous occasion becomes a lesson about racism and injustice. When Granddaddy puts on his best suit, Michael knows it is a special day. Michael has learned the value of hard work from his chores on the farm and patience from the afternoons fishing with Granddaddy. In this touching picture book by the authors of White Water (2011), an African-American boy learns the importance of voting by accompanying his grandfather to a polling station.

Granddaddy's Turn by Michael S. Bandy